Digipay targets $1 billion in credit sales as it expands beyond Digikala

Digipay is targeting $1 billion in credit sales for the current Iranian year as it expands financing for everyday purchases beyond Digikala, CEO Omid Torabi told Digiato.

Torabi said the Iranian financial technology company has about 12 million monthly active users, roughly 10 million people with access to credit and more than 2 million monthly credit buyers. About 40% of credit spending now takes place on other platforms, while Digikala, the online marketplace at the center of the group, accounts for 60%.

The sales target remains in place despite exchange-rate fluctuations, he said. It covers the Iranian year ending in March 2027 and refers to purchases made on credit, rather than company revenue.

Torabi also described Digipay as Iran’s largest fintech and digital lending player by gross merchandise value.

Taking credit into everyday spending

Asked whether credit purchases help consumers or encourage indebtedness, Torabi argued that credit should become a routine payment option across household spending.

He cited concert tickets, fuel and utility bills as examples of purchases consumers finance elsewhere. Asked specifically about buy now, pay later purchases of tickets to Iranian singer Homayoun Shajarian’s concerts, he said the question was why such options had taken so long to become available in Iran. He identified sanctions as a major reason for the delay.

Torabi estimated that credit cards and buy now, pay later services, or BNPL, account for about half of purchases globally and roughly 80% in the United States, predominantly through credit cards.

He argued that BNPL had provided a route into consumer credit in markets where credit cards had not been widely established, citing Iran and Saudi Arabia.

He said growth in fast-moving consumer goods reflected credit reaching more of the household shopping basket.

“Our mission is to take credit beyond Digikala and into people’s everyday lives,” he said.

He estimated total monthly consumer credit purchases in Iran at no more than 30 trillion tomans, or as much as 40 trillion under an optimistic assessment. Those figures cover several forms of consumer credit, rather than Digipay alone.

For comparison, he put purchases through Shaparak, Iran’s card payment network, at about 32 quadrillion tomans in the previous Iranian year, saying almost all were paid without credit. The figures were his estimates.

DigiCard expansion depends on banking rules

Digipay has distributed about 600,000 DigiCards, according to Torabi. About 300,000 people use the card at least once a month, and roughly 200,000 have made it their everyday card.

He said the company aims to reach between 1 million and 2 million cards by the end of the Iranian year.

Torabi described DigiCard as the first bank card in Iran that customers pay to obtain. He said its rollout required gradual discussions with regulators, particularly the central bank, to establish confidence in linking a bank card to a wallet at this scale.

The company wants to connect DigiCard to BNPL. Torabi said that work falls within the Economy Ministry’s Afra initiative for interoperability between credit acceptance networks, and that banking rules, rather than technical capabilities, are the main challenge.

A connection between DigiCard and the company’s wealth wallet was scheduled to be unveiled on Oct. 14.

Torabi said DigiCard offers 0.5% cashback on transactions, including fuel purchases. Cashback at some participating merchants had risen from 5% to as much as 14% through merchant partnerships, he said.

Defaults and wartime repayment relief

Torabi said Digipay’s default rate had remained below 2% despite two wars and several crises. He attributed that performance to the company’s data-driven approach, links to large platforms and established customer base.

He said disruptions to systems and one-time passwords had temporarily affected repayments during wartime, but that the deterioration was subsequently reversed.

Torabi said Digipay had neither blocked nor reduced customers’ credit during the war. For BNPL, he said the company suspended installment collection follow-ups from the Iranian month of Dey through the end of Ordibehesht, roughly late December through late May, and waived penalties.

For bank-funded loans, Digipay acted as a guarantor and an agent for banks, he said. Banks cooperated on relief, but some customer complaints arose because their systems were not ready to stop applying penalties.

Digikala remains central as merchant competition grows

Torabi said Digipay remains part of the Digikala group. Digikala is still its largest merchant and most important source of data for assessing creditworthiness.

He estimated that Digikala accounts for about half of Iran’s e-commerce market and said Digipay had grown strongly on the platform during the past year. Reaching a 40% share of credit spending outside Digikala had initially seemed difficult, he said.

Torabi accused rival credit provider SnappPay of seeking exclusivity, while acknowledging that the companies share interests in managing systemic risk, building familiarity with credit and working with banks and regulators.

He said Digipay had pursued legal action and recruited merchants across fashion, travel and groceries. He named Banimode, Pierre Cardin, Jeanswest and Body Spinner; Alibaba, Flytoday and Jabama; and Okala, Haft, Daily Market and Janbo.

The dispute predates this interview. In a statement reported in May 2025, SnappPay rejected a Competition Council ruling concerning its merchant contracts and said it would appeal. Subsequent reporting described a message from SnappPay to merchants saying provisions deemed anticompetitive by the appeals body had been removed. Neither statement was a response to Torabi’s latest comments.

AI handles about 60% of customer calls

Torabi said AI now answers about 60% of customer calls. He put daily call volumes at roughly 6,000 to 7,000 and said the goal is for AI to answer all calls by the end of the Iranian year.

Across call centers, contract management, production, testing and quality control, AI projects had reduced the number of additional people the company needed to hire by at least 150, he said. He described avoided hiring, rather than job cuts.

The company also plans to use the AI agent architecture developed for customer service in its interface and customer experience.

Torabi said financial, legal and commercial agents review and manage merchant contracts, of which the company signs several thousand to as many as 10,000 a month. Final signatures remain with the CEO, with that step also moving toward digital signatures.

He described a payment agent designed to take account of payment-network restrictions, customer constraints and Digipay’s infrastructure when deciding how to handle transfers, installment payments or purchases.

The priority, he said, was for AI to solve practical problems rather than simply give customers another bot to answer.